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Facebook has again made changes with new privacy settings, which will start rolling out to accounts over the next few weeks.

One of the changes is to the Public Search option which is being removed. Facebook account holders who previously used this privacy setting will no longer have this option. This means that as your account name can be searched publicly, ANYONE, including those people who are not on Facebook, may be in a position to find you.

For Officer Safety purposes a suggestion would be to make a slight alteration to your name, so as not to become obvious in a search result, but still enough detail that is known to your friends & family. Be thoughtful to consider the Facebook terms of service (SRR), when doing this. It may also be viable that if you do not want the public to view a personal photo of you, to change your profile picture to an avatar.

The change to public search DOES NOT change who can view your profile. If you have your privacy settings in place, this will not change. For children’s accounts the public search option will remain in inactive for them until they attain the age of 18years, where it will then go public automatically.

Regarding your profile picture and cover photo. The cover photo is the large picture that spreads across your Timeline which is public view by default and cannot be changed. It is best that personal photos, especially of you or your family, are not displayed here.

The Profile picture is the smaller picture which identifies you on Facebook. Every time you post or engage in activity on Facebook this picture represents you. Ensure your profile picture is credible and not displaying anything that may be construed as offensive or detrimental to you or your workplace.

The profile picture is also public by default, however you can click into the photo and change the view, so only your friends can see the larger version of the picture. Changing the audience to friends, disallows the public to view the larger portion of the photo AND any comments or likes that accompany it.

Click on your Profile picture – it will open to a larger view of the photo – under your name and next to where the date is displayed, you will see a grey icon, (in most instances this will be a World Globe), this is the audience selector – click on this to display a drop down box – choose the Friends option.

Just to re-iterate this does not remove your profile picture from the public search view, it only prevents the public from viewing the larger version of your photo AND any comments or likes that accompany it.

Janita Docherty founder and Director of CyberActive Services is a trained Crime Prevention Executive with more than 18 years experience in the field of law and criminal investigation. Janita specialises in Facebook and Internet Safety instruction and is recognised for her work with law enforcement Units dedicated in the fields of E-Crime, Sex Crime, State Intelligence and Tactical Intelligence areas. Janita has an intricate knowledge on the workings of Facebook from a criminal intelligence perspective and is a leader in her field regarding Facebook training to Police and specialist law enforcement departments both in Australia and the United States. Janita has completed training with the Internet Crime Against Children (ICAC) Taskforce, and holds a number of Certifications, including a Diploma in Frontline Management, a full qualification in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), is a Youth Mental Health First Aider and has been presented with a National Service Medal. She is held in high regard within social media and law enforcement domains, for her enthusiasm to educate professionals, regarding online safety and digital reputation management.

It’s the kind of lawsuit that’s been anticipated and predicted by many, especially within law enforcement.

Earlier this week, the Honolulu Police Department was named in a complaint over deleted Facebook posts. According to the Associated Press, the deleted posts were made by members of a gun group and the lawsuit indicates the deletions on the part of HPD were “arbitrary.”

Legal experts seem to agree that it boils down to whether the Facebook page is truly a public forum.

William Lasser, a professor of political science and a first amendment scholar at Clemson University, explained that the roots of the definition of public forums go back to the 1930s, when courts defined public forum in terms of it being a physical or literal space. But the definition, he said, has been expanded in the decades since.

“You could endlessly complicate this,” he said and explained that the definition of public forum is generally a government-controlled space, but there are exceptions to that. He said, for example, prisons and military bases are not public forums.

The definition can also include spaces not generally open as public forums that the government has declared to be public forums. It can also include a space which would not otherwise be a public forum, but is being used as a public forum and has gone unchecked by government and becomes public forum by default.

If the page is determined not to be a public forum, Lasser said, “the government can pretty much regulate speech there for any rational purpose.”

The legal issue, he said, is “whether through action or inaction the police department has welcomed robust public debate on issues. If they have, it becomes a public forum, but that’s not to say that even in that case they can never restrict speech. It’s just that they would need a compelling governmental interest.”

The question of whether there’s a compelling government interest was also pinpointed by Rick Joyce, a Washington, D.C., based attorney and chair of the communications group at Venable, LLP.

“The problem I think they might have is whether someone did made a decision based upon what was said,” Joyce said, “and if so, did the police department have legitimate government interest to remove it?”

The fact that a police department posts a takedown policy could help its case.

Lasser likened it to a bulletin board where you can post a notice, but have to get approval first.

“You can’t have it both ways though, and posting a takedown policy doesn’t by itself immunize oneself from the public forum doctrine,” Lasser said. “Time, place and manner restrictions on speech are permissible but the dividing line between time, place and manner can’t be based on content.”

The constitutionality of such a takedown policy is key, Joyce said. Any policy that allows someone to “pick and choose” to delete content could be problematic.

“They ought to have a department attorney take a look to see if in broadest terms that takedown policy conforms with relevant first amendment precedents,” Joyce said. “The first amendment may not be established in the cloud or in new media, but the question as to whether there’s a government interest at stake is pretty well establish.”

Issues such as this one have stifled some police departments’ willingness to use Facebook. The case is thought to be the first of its kind to begin to answer these tough questions as to how a police department, or any government organization, can use a social network to provide for open dialog and how far it can go to limit or otherwise affect that dialog.

If a community page exists for your department, here’s how you can claim it

It’s possible your police department has a page on Facebook that no one associated with the department created. I’m not referring to pages created by impersonators. That’s a different Quick Tip.

However, sometimes pages are created by Facebook when someone selects an associated interest or when someone checks in to a location. Those pages are called Community Pages, and they’re accompanied by a briefcase or a geo-location pin as an icon.

If such a page exists for your police department, you can claim it. First you must convince Facebook that you’re the official representative and become the admin. Then you can merge it with your real page.

Here’s how:

In the upper right corner of the page, click on the round asterisk-looking pull-down menu.

Select Is this your business?

Fill in the information and click Continue.

You will then have to choose a method to verify you can claim the page.

Once Facebook reviews your request and accepts it, you’ll be made the administrator of the page. You can then merge it with your current page.

To merge two pages they must have similar names and the same address. Go to the page with the most Likes.

Click Edit Page

Then Update Info

Then Resources

If you have two pages that qualify to be merged, you will see a link offering you to Merge duplicate pages.

When completed, the Likes and Check in From the page with the fewest Likes will be incorporated into the page with most Likes. Everything else on the old Community Page will go away.

The ConnectedCOPS Leadership Award finalists have been determined. Approximately two dozen nominations for 21 officers from three countries were received for this award. The finalists in this category are pioneers, have demonstrated exemplary leadership and have mentored their peers.

Dale Stockton is a Senior Editor at Law Officer magazine, and one of seven judges for this category. “Leadership is so incredibly important in public safety, especially when you’re entering a relatively new area like social media,” he said, and added “It is really encouraging to see so many powerful examples of individuals who have stepped up and are leading the way for others.”

ConnectedCOPS Leadership Award

This award is given to the individual officer up to and including the rank of Sergeant (or its international equivalent) at any worldwide law enforcement agency who has singularly demonstrated exemplary and selfless leadership in the use of social media to improve public safety and/or enhance his or her agency’s community engagement and reputation. This individual is creative, innovative and fearless and shares what s/he knows by mentoring others, participating in public speaking opportunities and leading by example.

Because there were so many great leaders nominated in this category, the judges selected five finalists. They are listed below in no significant order:

Special Constable Tom Stirling, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Special Constable Tom Stirling worked diligently to bring the North Yorkshire Police Service into digital communications on his own time by designing a mobile application. He then taught himself how to program the app resulting in “NYP mobile”, the first mobile app in policing in England, all at no cost to his department. His work has earned him the “Outstanding Police Communicator” Award from the Association of Police Communicators and has been emulated by other departments.

Police Constable Ed Rogerson, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Police Constable Ed Rogerson is regarded as possibly the first officer in the UK to use social media for community engagement. Rogerson is nationally and internationally known for his use of social media and is often cited as an example of best practice. He regularly speaks at professional events about his use of social media in policing. His work has gained him near celebrity status among youth in the UK as they recognize him from Twitter and YouTube.

Constable Scott Mills, Toronto Police Service, Canada
Constable Mills is highly regarded as a global leader in police adoption of social media. One of his foremost qualities is that he works in service of others, in relentless pursuit to improve public safety and support others to do the same. Mills is the quintessential pioneer and has put in countless hours, he has endured much criticism from those who don’t or won’t understand, and yet he persists. Through his sincere and consistent approach, Mills has even gained support and a considerable following from unlikely groups, including gang members and activists.

Sergeant Rob Sutten, Portsmouth City Central Police, United Kingdom
Sergeant Sutten has been the leader and champion at the Hampshire Constabulary in the UK for his groundbreaking local use of Twitter. He is said to be innovate, charismatic and jovial. With his media department, he developed a fictional character called “Ninah” to develop crime prevention messages for children and incorporated humor and games. Ninah also tweets real-time updates about committed offenses, the thrill of her chase, as well as the arrest and result of conviction.

Sergeant Jay Turner, Hamilton Police Service, Canada
Sergeant Turner has taken Twitter use to a new level and is widely regarded as innovative and humorous. Because of the strength of his messaging on Twitter, he has significantly improved the public communication from HPS to citizens. Sergeant Turner mentors others at HPS, having personally developed five of the agency’s seven accounts, overcoming reluctance from his colleagues and supervisors.

This is the final awards category to be announced this week. Finalists in the other awards categories were announced earlier in the week on this blog and can be found at the links provided below. Winners will be announced September 10th at The SMILE Conference™ in Richmond, Virginia.

The ConnectedCOPS Awards were created by LAwS Communications with the intent of recognizing the good work being done by individual officers and law enforcement agencies with social media. The international law enforcement community will be considered for these awards. Any officer or agency anywhere in the world is eligible.

The ConnectedCOPS Excellence at a Large Agency Award finalists have been determined. This award generated more than a dozen nominations from five countries; three countries are represented in the finalists listing. The finalists in this category have demonstrated a proactive strategic approach to the implementation of open source technology into their communication plans.

Doug Wyllie, Senior Editor at Police One, was one of seven judges in this category. He said, “Because large agencies in particular have the manpower and resources to do some pretty incredible stuff with social media, that category was an especially hard one to rank. The nominations were oustanding.”

ConnectedCOPS Excellence at a Large Agency

This award is given to a law enforcement agency, anywhere in the world, of 151 sworn officers or more that has demonstrated overall excellence in the use of social media to enhance its services to the public. The agency exhibits leadership, creativity and innovation in its use of social media to engage, educate, recruit, and etc. The agency has a broad and deep understanding of social media use and applies sound governance and strategy in its social media operations. The agency also promotes the use of social networking in law enforcement through its outreach to colleagues and by mentoring others.

We have three finalists and they are (in no order of significance):

Reykjavik Police, Iceland
The Reykjavik Metropolitan Police (RMP) began using social media in late 2010. With 22,000 followers on Facebook in a country of 320,000, it’s one of the largest followings, per capital in the world. The social media implementation is a small step towards building digital policing in Iceland, the end product being a fully digital police station with additional presence in Twitter (the Chief is currently using Twitter) and YouTube. The RMP is finding that social media is both a cost-effective way of community policing but is also turning out to be one of the key points into building trust between the police and the public.

Toronto Police, Canada
The Toronto Police Service (TPS) put together a team of Service members at the end of 2010 to develop its social media communication strategy. They began implementing the strategy in January of 2011 and continue today. The TPS strategy includes the use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+ in an integrated approach across all Units, Community Consultative Groups and 17 Divisions of the Service. The TPS understands that the role of serving and protecting is all about relationships. They’re using social media for crowd control during protests and to collaborate to save lives. They also regularly debate issues like sexual assault, teen suicide prevention, and domestic violence. They are dedicated to implementing the vision of community collaboration for success and safety and using social media to engage and empower citizens.

New South Wales Police, Australia
The New South Wales Police (NSWP) began its Project Eyewatch in 2011 as its strategy to reinvigorate community engagement and openness in policing through the concept of Neighbourhood Watch in the 21st Century. NSWP’s Project Eyewatch uses Facebook to reduce crime through conscious security measure, visibility and community cohesion. Eyewatch is about empowering residents with the ability to participate in crime prevention activities online in their own homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and is based on 4 key strategies: 1) Focus on people who need our help; 2) empower accountability; 3) balance priorities and 4) develop community capacity and sustainability.

Finalists in the other awards categories will be announced throughout this week on this blog. Check back to see the finalists for Excellence at a Small Agency tomorrow. Winners will be announced September 10th at The SMILE Conference™ in Richmond, Virginia.

The ConnectedCOPS Awards were created by LAwS Communications with the intent of recognizing the good work being done by individual officers and law enforcement agencies with social media. The international law enforcement community will be considered for these awards. Any officer or agency anywhere in the world is eligible.

Disclaimer: LAwS Communications served as a consultant to the Toronto Police Service during the development of its social media strategy and is not a judge on this or any of the ConnectedCOPS Awards.

About ConnectedCOPS

The vision behind ConnectedCOPS is to enhance law officers’ ability to succeed with social media tools by providing insight, encouragement, education and the overall support required. It is also to promote the insightful thoughts of the law enforcement social media visionaries by providing them a voice on this blog.